Five police officers who went missing a week ago in Mexico are found dead

12/02/2019

"In a plot near the town of Corungueo, municipality of Zitácuaero, the bodies of five police elements were found, missing on February 4," the Public Security Secretariat of Michoacán reported.

Five police officers reported missing for a week were found dead, local authorities reported in a municipality in the central Mexican state of Michoacán.

Police officers were reported missing a week ago while conducting a patrol in the municipality of Tuzantla, in the Tierra Caliente region of that central state, about 250 kilometers east of Mexico City.

The agents had received threats after conducting recent police operations that culminated in the seizure of arms, drugs, and money.

An operation of federal security forces combined with police officers from that province affected by organized crime sought by air and land in an area that includes five municipalities.

The first investigations point to the criminal organization known as "La Vieja Familia Michoacana", which operates in a region that extends to the central state of Mexico, which surrounds the capital of the country.

During 2018, 404 police officers were killed throughout the country, an average of 1.6 agents per day.

The previous year, 561 police officers were killed, according to the count of the civil organization Causa en Común, which keeps records of violence in the country.

The municipalities are the most affected by organized crime, with almost half of the police officers killed (47.8%).

As for casualties among members of the Army, 538 soldiers have been killed in combat since December 1, 2012, to June 30, 2018, according to statistics from the federal Defense Ministry.

More than 200,000 civilian lives have been lost since the start of the war against organized crime in 2007, in which at least 40,000 people have disappeared, there are 28,000 unidentified bodies in the mortuaries and more than 1,100 mass graves, authorities say of the new Government that began last December.

The government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador believes that the police forces are not trained to deal with crime and that the military should continue deployed in tasks of public security, while forming a militarized National Guard with 50,000 troops, whose bill discusses is under discussion in the Senate, with the opposition of human rights defenders.